The Lost Princess

by Debbie Dadey

  “I’m going home,” Shelly said to Echo when it finally sounded. “I have to talk to Grandfather Siren about this princess business right away.”

  “May I come with you?” Echo asked. “I want to hear all the details about royalty.”

  Shelly nodded. Together, they swam by the Manta Ray Express Station.

  Enormous manta rays were used to take the merpeople of Trident City from place to place. For just a couple of shells, the rays would take you anywhere in the ocean. They even took merfamilies on long trips. The flashing blue-green light of the eyelight fish warned that a manta express was getting ready to leave.

  An elderly merwoman pushed past the mergirls on her way to the station. Shelly noticed something fall as she rushed by. “Excuse me. I think you dropped this!” But the merlady didn’t stop; she just floated quickly onto the big ray.

  “I guess she didn’t want to miss the last ray of the day,” Echo said. “What did she drop? Is it a pirate map?”

  Shelly laughed. She knew her friend had always wanted to find a treasure map. “No, silly. It looks like a letter.”

  “Let me see,” Echo said, pulling the folded seaweed out of Shelly’s hand.

  “We shouldn’t read it,” Shelly said. “It’s her property.”

  “But we have to if we’re going to find out who she is so we can return it to her,” Echo explained.

  “All right,” Shelly said, and waited while Echo read. “Well, what does it say?” Shelly asked after a minute.

  Echo giggled. “You are not going to believe this! It’s a letter—a love letter—from Mr. Fangtooth to that lady!”

  “No wavy way!” Shelly leaned over Echo’s shoulder as they read together.

  “Mendel?” Shelly said.

  “ ‘Yours in love,’ ” Echo said. “Isn’t that romantic?”

  “It’s old,” Shelly said.

  Echo looked up from the seaweed. “What are you talking about? Love isn’t old-fashioned.”

  “I mean the seaweed letter,” Shelly explained. “It’s very old. Maybe Mr. Fangtooth wrote it when he was young.”

  “It’s still romantic,” Echo said. “And we have to get the letter back to that merlady somehow.”

  The girls watched as the enormous ray flapped its huge wings and silently moved away from the station, carrying five merpeople on its broad back. “I think that merwoman has bumped into me before,” Shelly said. “She’s almost as grouchy as Mr. Fangtooth.”

  “I guess they were made for each other,” Echo said.

  “We can worry about them later. Right now I have to find out the truth from Grandpa,” Shelly said, swimming toward home.

  Echo nodded and followed her friend into the People Museum. That’s where Shelly’s grandfather Siren worked. In fact, he ran the museum and was the ocean’s chief expert on mankind. Shelly and her grandfather lived in a small apartment above the museum. Echo loved exploring all the people things, but Shelly thought humans and anything to do with them were silly. She’d heard they couldn’t even breathe underwater.

  The mergirls found Shelly’s grandfather in the circular-shapes section creating a display of the weird human items. One had padding and some sort of spokes or wires attached. Another looked like a flattened jellyfish with letters that spelled “volleyball” on it. Shelly wondered briefly what they could be used for. Then she blurted out, “Grandpa, am I a princess?”

  Grandfather Siren jumped. “Shelly! Echo! I didn’t hear you come in.” He put down a round metal object that had three long sticks poking out of one side, and rubbed his chin. He looked at his granddaughter and spoke softly.

  “I wondered when this would finally come up. I had hoped you could have a few more years of an everyday, normal life.”

  Shelly couldn’t believe her ears. “You mean it’s true, Grandpa? I’m a . . . ”

  “Princess,” Echo finished for her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep it a secret?” Shelly demanded. “Don’t you think that I should know if I’m some sort of royalty? Are you royalty too? What about my parents?”

  Grandfather looked down at his silver tail. “Perhaps I should have told you. I was waiting until the time was right.”

  Shelly had rarely been this upset. “When was that going to be? Right before they made me empress?”

  “Now, Shelly, you are third in line to the Western crown. There’s not a lot of chance of you becoming an empress.”

  “Third in line!” Shelly knew that meant if something happened to two other merpeople, she would be the queen. “I can’t believe these rumors are true! I don’t want to be royalty. I don’t want to be a princess, and I certainly don’t want to be your granddaughter!”

  Shelly splashed to her room with tears in her eyes. She left Grandfather Siren and Echo floating with their mouths wide open.

  Princess Shelly

  SHELLY FELL ON HER SEA FAN bed and sobbed. “I can’t believe Grandpa kept the truth from me all these years.” Shelly’s parents had died when she was quite young, and her grandfather had raised her from a small fry. Never in all the lessons he had taught her about royalty had he ever hinted she was a princess. Was she the only one who didn’t know? No, if Echo knew, she would have told her the truth. Shelly was sure of that.

  Shelly rolled over and stared at the bioluminescent plankton that glowed on the ceiling of her small room. She still had so many unanswered questions. What was she supposed to do, now that she was a princess? Would she have to move out of the People Museum like Pearl said? Could she ever see her friends again? She had a terrible feeling in her stomach. She had always lived in Trident City.

  Shelly usually didn’t like sparkly things, but the plankton’s bright flashes of light were pleasant.

  “I guess if I really am a princess, I’ll have to get used to lots of glittery things,” she told the plankton as she wiped tears from her cheeks.

  Shelly sighed and tried to picture herself as royalty. She closed her eyes and imagined a grand undersea castle. Soon she fell asleep and dreamed. Wearing a shiny crown and a glistening dress that shimmered with diamonds and emeralds, she sat in a large pink shell carriage drawn by majestic dolphins, bigger than any she’d ever seen.

  The dolphins pulled her along in a parade. She waved to all the merpeople as she passed by. They cheered, “Long live Princess Shelly! Long live Princess Shelly!”

  Suddenly one of the merpeople reached out and grabbed her. Shelly screamed and sat straight up in bed. Grandfather Siren floated beside her, his hand on her arm. “I didn’t want to wake you,” he said, “but, my little shell, I need to explain.”

  Shelly shook her head. “You already did.”

  “Well, not the whole story,” Grandfather said. “But I promise I never meant to hurt you. The truth is, your mother was a princess, but she wanted to live a normal life. Your father, my son, married into royalty. When they died, I knew someday you would live as a royal. I kept it a secret so that other merchildren wouldn’t treat you differently. Very few people in the ocean even know about you.”

  Shelly remembered how everyone had stared at her in the cafeteria and started saying all kinds of ridiculous things. Especially Pearl and Rocky. Shelly nodded slowly. “I’m sorry about what I said. It’s just so hard to believe.”

  Her grandfather gave her a big hug and said, “I know, but your life will not change right away. It will be some time before you have to learn about your duties. So let’s put the princess business aside for now. Before Echo left, she told me your class is studying the amazing mollusk.”

  “We’re supposed to make a sculpture of our favorite,” Shelly told him.

  “That sounds like fun,” Grandfather said. “While we have dinner, how would you like to learn to speak to them?”

  Shelly grinned. She loved learning languages. She’d lost count of exactly how many she knew, but so far her favorite had been the humpback whale dialect. “I’d love it!”

  Over the next couple of hours, Shelly
the princess became Shelly the squid-talker. She almost forgot all about being a princess . . . until she went to bed.

  ALL NIGHT LONG SHE TOSSED AND turned. In one dream, her sea fan was full of sharp rubies that jabbed her in the stomach.

  In another dream, there was a war and she had to fight Queen Hoshi of the Eastern Oceans. Shelly woke up shouting, “Let’s be friends!”

  She was relieved to see that she was in her own room and the plankton still glowed peacefully on her ceiling. Everything was the same, but deep down Shelly knew that everything was different. A tear slid down her cheek because she knew the truth. Nothing would ever be the same again.

  A Crown

  PEARL WAVED HER ARM BACK and forth, almost jumping out of her seat. “Miss Haniver . . . Miss Haniver,” she said. “Did you hear that Shelly is a princess?” It was the next day in art class and Miss Haniver was giving them a lesson on sculpting.

  Rocky yelled out, “I heard Shelly eats dinner with King Cid every Tuesday and has servants do her homework.”

  Shelly stared at Rocky. Where had he heard that?

  Several merkids looked at Shelly and whispered. Miss Haniver frowned and said, “There are no princesses in here, only artists.”

  Art was not Shelly’s favorite subject, but today she was grateful that Miss Haniver had made Rocky be quiet about royalty. Shelly scrunched her nose at the large piece of stone at the front of the art room and thought about sculpting. “How in the undersea world is anyone supposed to make a mollusk from that rock?” she whispered to Echo.

  Echo shrugged her shoulders. Shelly glanced at Kiki. She looked even more worried than Shelly. Rocky didn’t seem troubled at all. He raised his hand. “Miss Haniver, when are we going to get knives so we can start carving?”

  Kiki gasped, but Miss Haniver shook her head. “I will not be giving third-grade merstudents carving knives,” she said.

  “But Mrs. Karp said we were going to make sculptures,” Rocky complained.

  “Indeed,” Miss Haniver said, looking over her tiny glasses at Rocky and patting the rock with her green tail fin. “But there are four different techniques in sculpting: carving—”

  “Yes!” a boy named Adam cheered. “That sounds awesome.”

  Miss Haniver glared at Adam, but continued. “Casting, modeling, and assembling. In casting, we pour mud into a mold. In assembling, we put pieces of materials together. We will attempt modeling, where we form clay into the shape we want.”

  Rocky groaned. “That doesn’t sound fun.”

  “It’s very enjoyable,” Miss Haniver told the class. “Today we will be using sand to practice, but when you’ve made your mollusk selection, we’ll switch to clay. Now, take some sand from the floor and give it a try.”

  Shelly scooped a handful of muddy sand from the ocean floor. She liked the way it squished between her fingers. She tried making an octopus. Some of the arms were really fat and some were too skinny. “This is harder than I thought,” she said to Kiki.

  Kiki nodded. A big blob of sand sat in front of her. “Does this look like a sea slug to you?”

  Shelly didn’t want to hurt Kiki’s feelings, but the blob didn’t look anything like a sea slug. “Well . . . ,” Shelly said.

  Kiki sighed and dug her hands back into the sand as Rocky teased, “My vampire squid is sucking my arm off.” The whole class turned to see Rocky’s hand stuck inside his molded vampire squid.

  “Save me!” he yelled.

  “Rocky!” Miss Haniver snapped. “That will be quite enough out of you for today.” She swam with Rocky to the back of the room for a little conference about proper classroom behavior.

  “Sweet seaweed, you shouldn’t be getting your hands dirty like that,” Pearl said to Shelly.

  Shelly looked up in surprise. Pearl had talked to her twice in one week. “Why not?” Shelly asked.

  “Aren’t you a princess?” Pearl asked.

  Shelly didn’t want to answer, especially since she thought everyone was listening. “Yes, my grandfather told me the truth,” she said softly. “My mother was a princess.”

  “Then put that nasty sand away.”

  “Why?” Shelly asked.

  Pearl rolled her eyes and took a seat next to Shelly. “Because you are a princess, and princesses don’t ever get dirty.”

  “Who says so?” Shelly pushed her red hair out of her face with a muddy hand.

  “Everybody knows that,” Pearl said.

  “Pearl,” Miss Haniver said from the back of the room, “get back to sculpting.”

  “Yes, Miss Haniver,” Pearl said sweetly, but she didn’t move away from Shelly. “Now that I’ve found out the truth, I have a gift for you.”

  “For me?” Shelly said.

  Pearl smiled and pulled a sparkling tiara out of a small bag. “My dad gave this to me for my birthday. You can borrow it,” Pearl said, “until you get your own.”

  “I can’t wear this,” Shelly said.

  “Why not?” Pearl said. “After all, you are a real princess.”

  Shelly looked at Pearl. She had shiny blond hair and a glistening white necklace of pearls. Pearl looked like she would make a good princess, but that’s not the way it had happened. Shelly took another look at the crown and shrugged. “Okay, I’ll give it a try.”

  Pearl giggled and placed the tiara on Shelly’s head. It felt tight and cold. Shelly didn’t feel any different inside, but she couldn’t help noticing the looks of surprise on Echo’s and Kiki’s faces.

  “MerStyle” Princess

  I’VE STUDIED A LOT ABOUT PRINCESSES in MerStyle magazines,” Pearl told Shelly at lunchtime. “Sit with me and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  Shelly shook her head, being careful not to knock off the crown. “I always sit with Echo and Kiki.”

  Pearl pulled Shelly to her table. “Don’t worry. They won’t miss you for just one day. Let me be your mermaid-in-waiting. I’ll help you with all your royal decisions.” Immediately Shelly was surrounded by mergirls from all different grades. She couldn’t even see Kiki and Echo. Where were they?

  “Shelly,” Wanda said with a giggle. “Can I have your autograph?”

  “Wanda,” Shelly said, “we’re in the same class together. Why do you want my autograph?”

  “Because,” Wanda said, “I’ve never met a real princess before.”

  Shelly sighed, and for the next few minutes she signed at least twenty pieces of seaweed with her name: Shelly Siren, princess of the Western Oceans. It was strange when she wrote it for the first time, but it got easier with each one.

  Shelly wondered if Kiki and Echo wanted her autograph too, but when she got a glimpse of them, they were sitting at their usual table with their backs to her.

  Finally Pearl held up her hand. “No more autographs today. Our princess needs to eat.”

  “Thanks,” Shelly told Pearl. “My hand was getting so tired. I’ll probably have trouble doing my homework after Shell Wars practice.”

  Pearl frowned. “Trouble, my tail. You are a princess. You don’t have to do homework. And forget Shell Wars, it’s too rough a sport.”

  “What?” Shelly said, trying not to slurp her sea grapes. She loved playing Shell Wars and was lucky to have made the school team.

  Pearl shook her head. “No, Shell Wars is not appropriate at all. You have a lot to learn about being royalty. But don’t worry. I’ll help you. What if I come over to your shell after school?”

  Shelly started to say maybe, but then she thought about Pearl’s home. It was the biggest, fanciest shell in all of Trident City. For the first time in her life, Shelly was embarrassed by where she lived. She didn’t want Pearl to see that she lived in such a small apartment. She wasn’t proud of herself and didn’t like the feeling, but she couldn’t help it. “No, my grandfather and I have royal business to discuss,” she lied.

  “Oh, of course,” Pearl said, looking at her bowl of black-lip oyster and sablefish stew. Shelly was shocked. She had told a li
e. She didn’t have anything to talk about with her grandfather . . . or did she?

  That afternoon, when she swam into the People Museum, her grandfather looked at her with surprise. “I thought you had Shell Wars practice today,” he said.

  “I’m going to quit the team. It’s not very princesslike,” Shelly told him. “Grandfather, when will I be moving to Neptune’s Castle? Will you be coming with me?”

  “Move? Neptune’s Castle?” Grandfather Siren said. “We have lived here nearly all your life.”

  Shelly looked around the huge museum. She had always liked the massive old ship before, but now it seemed a bit run down. “Do you think it is a good place for royalty to live?”

  Grandfather glanced at the tiara on Shelly’s head. “So that’s what this is all about. I wonder who gave you these ideas.”

  “I was talking to this girl named Pearl today,” Shelly said.

  “Is Pearl a friend of yours?” Grandfather asked.

  Shelly shook her head. “Well, not exactly. I mean, she really just started to be my friend.”

  Grandfather’s furry eyebrows went up, and he patted Shelly on the shoulder. “I see. Just remember: With great privilege comes great responsibility,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that you must set a good example. You must show people the right way to behave and not think you are better than anyone else.”

  “But Pearl says I am better,” Shelly blurted out without thinking. She put her hand over her mouth. She couldn’t believe what she had just said. But then she added, “Everyone at school asked for my autograph, and they wanted me to eat lunch with them and invited me to join their clubs.”

  “Yes, but what of Echo and Kiki?” Grandfather asked.

  Shelly felt guilty about not sitting with them at lunch, but surely they understood that being a princess was hard work.

  “Everyone wants to be around important and famous people, even if they don’t truly know them,” Grandfather said. “But they aren’t your real friends. Real friends like you even if you aren’t a princess, and they don’t care where you live.”